NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 28 number 2 - Winter 2007

Faculty Studies Memorialize Troxler and Wells

By Chelcy Stutzman, Outreach and Engagement

The NCSU Libraries is pleased to announce the naming of two faculty studies, in memory of Robert T. Troxler and B. W. Wells. Troxler, a professor at NC State for forty-four years, taught in the School of Education's Department of Industrial Arts. After his death in 2002, the Libraries learned that he had left a $15,000 bequest for his beloved D. H. Hill Library. Botanist Bertram Whittier Wells, who died in 1978, belonged to the first generation of North American plant ecologists and pioneered the ecological study of the southeastern United States. After the death of Wells's wife, Maude B. Wells, the Libraries learned that she had left a gift of $28,898 to the Libraries through her estate.

Troxler attended State College as a student in the early 1940s before assuming a teaching position at NC State. His work remained his life's passion. He was a lifelong learner before the term was invented and loved teaching at NC State until his retirement at the age of seventy in 1989. Troxler taught classes on such subjects as drawing, design, woodworking, and ceramics. His family has described him as a joy to be around and as a very positive and thought-provoking person who touched the lives of many students and faculty members at NC State. He enjoyed entertaining a crowd and was an excellent public speaker equipped with great stories and wonderful jokes. Troxler always wore his signature bowtie and looked for ways to add fun to his students' lives, such as preparing them breakfast on some type of unusual cooking equipment or ending a class with a party.

The Troxler family remembers him as a walking book of knowledge. The D. H. Hill Library was a place he admired and loved, and he visited almost daily. He cherished reading and preached its importance and the value of continual learning. Troxler used the library as a place to write, first about his scientific studies and later about his family's involvement in World War II and his life growing up on the Haw River with his ten brothers and sisters. Up until the time of his death, he regularly went to his faculty study number 9216.

Bertram Whittier Wells arrived in North Carolina in 1919 to head the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology (now the Department of Plant Biology) at North Carolina State College. Inspired by a glimpse from a train of the colorful mosaic of flowering plants at the Big Savannah in Pender County, he documented the native plants of North Carolina and how they interacted with and were influenced by their environment. By immersing himself in the relatively new science of ecology and spending countless hours in the field, Wells devoted his life to fulfilling that mission [see "B. W. Wells: Pioneer Ecologist," Focus, Volume 27:2 (2007); and "Exhibitions Take a Bow," in this issue.

Wells taught at NC State until 1954, and throughout his career he sought to enlighten everyone he encountered on the importance of appreciating nature. His guide, The Natural Gardens of North Carolina, describes the theories of ecology for a popular audience interested in gardening, and it remains Wells's single most enduring contribution.
Throughout his life, Wells gave countless lectures, armed with lantern slides and a projector, speaking on topics ranging from gardening to the Big Savannah. The time and attention to detail that he invested in transforming black-and-white images into hand-colored lantern slides testify to his love of nature and the importance he placed on showing other North Carolinians that love on these images. In addition to his slides, Wells was also an artist who painted scenes of his family, home, and nature.

Though he was ultimately unable to save his most beloved site--the ecologically unique Big Savannah--from development, his work inspired the discovery and preservation of a smaller yet similar site, dedicated as the B. W. Wells Savannah in 2002.

North Carolina State University and the Libraries are honored to play a part in remembering R. T. Troxler and Bertram Whittier Wells. For information about supporting the NCSU Libraries or about the opportunity to name a faculty study, please call Michael Gulley at (919) 515-7315 or send an electronic-mail message to michael_gulley@ncsu.edu.